Seven of the 10 highest confidence levels in the survey are recorded in emerging Asian cities, with San Francisco being the only exception in the top 5 from the developed world.

Three Indian cities rank among the top 5 cities around the globe with the highest confidence in making the digital transformation.

Three Indian cities rank among the top four around the world in terms of the confidence of businesses in making a digital transformation based on the skills and infrastructure available in their immediate environment, a fresh study has found.

Karnataka’s capital Bengaluru tops the list, beating San Francisco that is home to the famous 'Silicon Valley' that houses several tech giants like Facebook and Google, a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit has found.

As per the report, Mumbai and New Delhi follow San Francisco at the third and fourth spot, respectively.

Bengaluru ranked at the top in terms of the confidence of business leaders in their digital environment based on innovation and entrepreneurship, people and skills, development of new technologies, financial environment, and ICT infrastructure, the report said.

"Indian cities may suffer more from infrastructure deficits, pollution, poverty and other ills, but when it comes to the environment for digital transformation, their executives are remarkably optimistic. This is particularly true of Bengaluru, where business leaders express the highest levels of confidence in their digital environment than in any other city in the study," the report authored by Denis McCauley says.

The report further notes that Mumbai and New Delhi are only slightly less bullish. Seven of the 10 highest confidence levels in the survey are recorded in emerging Asian cities, with San Francisco being the only exception in the top 5 from the developed world.

Notably, developed cities account for eight of the 10 lowest readings in the barometer, with executives in Berlin, Yokohama, Tokyo and Taipei the least confident of all. Among the top 10, London at 9th, and Madrid at 10th spot, are the only two developed cities to feature on the list.

The analysis in the report is based on a survey of 2,620 executives in 45 cities conducted in June and July this year.

Explaining the need for the survey, the report highlights the difficulties industries and businesses undertake to put digital technology at the heart of everything they do, an exercise that has come to be known as digital transformation.

“It can be an enormously difficult and complex undertaking, requiring not just the deployment of advanced technologies but also the overhauling of business processes and a large degree of cultural change. In most cases, firms' existing internal resources will not be enough to pull transformation off, and they need to look outside their own four walls for additional support," the report says.